By Dante Bayona: There is a story about the great Catalan surrealist painter Salvador Dali. It is said that in the last years of his life, when he was already famous, he signed checks knowing that they would not be submitted to the bank for payment. Rather, after partying with his friends and consuming the most expensive items the restaurants had to offer, he would ask for the bill, pull out one of his checks, write the amount, and sign it. Before handing over the check, he quickly turned it around, made a drawing on the back and autographed it. Dali knew the owner of the restaurant would not cash the check but keep it,put it in a frame, and display it in the most prominent place in the restaurant: “An original Dali.” It was a good deal for Dali: his checks never came back to the bank to be cashed, and he still enjoyed great banquets with all of his friends. Dali had a magic checkbook.
But what would have happened if one day art collectors concluded that Dali’s work really did not capture the essence of surrealism, and therefore that his art was not of great value? If that had happened, every autographed check would have come back to the bank (at least in theory), and Dali would have had to pay up. If Dali had not saved enough money, he would have had to find a job painting houses.
While the analogy is not perfect, we may find that something similar can happen with the Fed and the dollar.
For now, The Fed has a magic checkbook that allows it to spend without paying the bill because it thinks the checks will never come back to be cashed.
Dali died long before people stopped valuing his art, but the US economy does not enjoy such a convenient escape. What if, as in the case of art collectors who might no longer see great value in Dali's work, the world loses faith in the quality of the dollar and stops using it for large international transactions? If that happens, in the same way Dali would have had to pay his bills, the US would also have to make good on the checks it signed. Would the US be able to pay its checks with more checks?
Since each country has its own currency, every central bank around the world has to print more of its national currency to buy the excess of dollars entering the country whenever the US expands its money supply. Thus, in the 1970s, in the wake of the Nixon Shock, members of OPEC accused the US of exporting inflation.
Recall that during the mid-1960s, the US central bank was financing a war in Vietnam and as well as funding Lyndon B. Johnson’s programs of “The Great Society”that supposedly would eliminate poverty. As the Fed was printing money, OPEC members had to inflate their currencies to buy the excess of dollars.
Central banks around the world have to buy excess of dollars entering their countries so their exports do not lose competitiveness. Thus, a double inflation is imposed on every country in the world, one created by its own domestic central bank, because all central banks inflate on their own, and another created by the US central bank. Hans-Hermann Hoppe wrote about the perils of monetary imperialism:
The dominating state will use its superior power to enforce a policy of internationally coordinated inflation. Its own central bank sets the pace in the process of counterfeiting, and the central banks of the dominated states are ordered to use its currency as their own reserves and inflate on top of them. Thus, along with the dominating state and as the earliest receivers of the counterfeit reserve currency, its associated banking and business establishment can engage in an almost costless expropriation of foreign property owners and income producers. A double layer of exploitation of a foreign state and a foreign elite on top of a national state and elite is imposed on the exploited class in the dominated territories, causing prolonged economic dependency on and relative economic stagnation in comparison with the dominant nation. It is this — very uncapitalist — situation that characterizes the status of the United States and the US dollar and that gives rise to the — correct — accusations concerning US economic exploitation and dollar imperialism.[1]While it is true that in the 1970s the dollar enjoyed a worldwide hegemony — given that all European countries had their currencies separated, and given that China and Russia were outside the capitalist world — now the situation is different. Vladimir Putin recently stated that “The international monetary system itself depends a lot on the U.S. dollar, or, to be precise, on the monetary and financial policy of the U.S. authorities. The BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) want to change this.”[2]
Salvador Dali had devised an ingenious method for not paying his bills. Similar stories are told about Pablo Picasso. But the Fed does not produce tangible items that people would rather hold on to, like an original Salvador Dali. The Fed does not produce work or items of value. The Salvador Dali effect, i.e., the ability to prevent checks from being cashed by creating something of real value, does not apply to the Fed. That is why it is good to remind the Fed, and the government, to be careful with the expenditures when partying, just in case the magic checkbook disappears.
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What The World Bank Actually Does
As many have heard by now, the leaders of the so-called BRICS nations – Brazil, India, China, Russia and South Africa – used the occasion of the 6th BRICS Summit in Brasilia, Brazil to announce the creation of the long-awaited BRICS Development Bank.
Formally the “New Development Bank,” it will be based in Shanghai and capitalized with an initial $10 billion in cash ($2 billion from each of the five founding members) and $40 billion in guarantees, to be built up to a total of $100 billion.
Immediately, the press began touting the new bank as a potential rival to the current IMF / World Bank system of infrastructure development and poverty reduction in the third world. “BRICS Development Bank Could Challenge World Bank and IMF” touts US News & World Report. “BRICS Ink $50 Billion Lender in World Bank, IMF Challenge” asserts Bloomberg. The World Bank, for its part, is downplaying the rivalry, with World Bank President Jim Young Kim openly welcoming the bank at a recent meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “The only competition we have is with poverty,” he told reporters at the meeting.
But all of this talk about a potential rival to the IMF and World Bank have exposed the general public’s ignorance about what exactly these institutions are and what they do. While most are familiar with the IMF and its predatory lending practices (and those who aren’t are encouraged to acquaint themselves with the “IMF riot” strategy that was developed in the third world and is now being imported to Europe), the World Bank is less scrutinized and less well understood. What is it, what does it do, and why is it important for the BRICS to challenge its hegemony in the development and poverty reduction arenas?
For the answer to that, we’ll need to examine the World Bank’s history, both the official history that it touts to the outside world and the real history of its part in plundering the developing world that it is supposedly there to help.
- See more at: http://www.globalresearch.ca/what-the-world-bank-actually-does/5396476?utm_source=feedly&utm_reader=feedly&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=what-the-world-bank-actually-does#sthash.xCGF4C45.dpufImmediately, the press began touting the new bank as a potential rival to the current IMF / World Bank system of infrastructure development and poverty reduction in the third world. “BRICS Development Bank Could Challenge World Bank and IMF” touts US News & World Report. “BRICS Ink $50 Billion Lender in World Bank, IMF Challenge” asserts Bloomberg. The World Bank, for its part, is downplaying the rivalry, with World Bank President Jim Young Kim openly welcoming the bank at a recent meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “The only competition we have is with poverty,” he told reporters at the meeting.
But all of this talk about a potential rival to the IMF and World Bank have exposed the general public’s ignorance about what exactly these institutions are and what they do. While most are familiar with the IMF and its predatory lending practices (and those who aren’t are encouraged to acquaint themselves with the “IMF riot” strategy that was developed in the third world and is now being imported to Europe), the World Bank is less scrutinized and less well understood. What is it, what does it do, and why is it important for the BRICS to challenge its hegemony in the development and poverty reduction arenas?
For the answer to that, we’ll need to examine the World Bank’s history, both the official history that it touts to the outside world and the real history of its part in plundering the developing world that it is supposedly there to help.
As many have heard by now, the leaders of the so-called BRICS nations – Brazil, India, China, Russia and South Africa – used the occasion of the 6th BRICS Summit in Brasilia, Brazil to announce the creation of the long-awaited BRICS Development Bank.
Formally the “New Development Bank,” it will be based in Shanghai and capitalized with an initial $10 billion in cash ($2 billion from each of the five founding members) and $40 billion in guarantees, to be built up to a total of $100 billion.
Immediately, the press began touting the new bank as a potential rival to the current IMF / World Bank system of infrastructure development and poverty reduction in the third world. “BRICS Development Bank Could Challenge World Bank and IMF” touts US News & World Report. “BRICS Ink $50 Billion Lender in World Bank, IMF Challenge” asserts Bloomberg. The World Bank, for its part, is downplaying the rivalry, with World Bank President Jim Young Kim openly welcoming the bank at a recent meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “The only competition we have is with poverty,” he told reporters at the meeting.
But all of this talk about a potential rival to the IMF and World Bank have exposed the general public’s ignorance about what exactly these institutions are and what they do. While most are familiar with the IMF and its predatory lending practices (and those who aren’t are encouraged to acquaint themselves with the “IMF riot” strategy that was developed in the third world and is now being imported to Europe), the World Bank is less scrutinized and less well understood. What is it, what does it do, and why is it important for the BRICS to challenge its hegemony in the development and poverty reduction arenas?
For the answer to that, we’ll need to examine the World Bank’s history, both the official history that it touts to the outside world and the real history of its part in plundering the developing world that it is supposedly there to help.
- See more at: http://www.globalresearch.ca/what-the-world-bank-actually-does/5396476?utm_source=feedly&utm_reader=feedly&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=what-the-world-bank-actually-does#sthash.xCGF4C45.dpufImmediately, the press began touting the new bank as a potential rival to the current IMF / World Bank system of infrastructure development and poverty reduction in the third world. “BRICS Development Bank Could Challenge World Bank and IMF” touts US News & World Report. “BRICS Ink $50 Billion Lender in World Bank, IMF Challenge” asserts Bloomberg. The World Bank, for its part, is downplaying the rivalry, with World Bank President Jim Young Kim openly welcoming the bank at a recent meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “The only competition we have is with poverty,” he told reporters at the meeting.
But all of this talk about a potential rival to the IMF and World Bank have exposed the general public’s ignorance about what exactly these institutions are and what they do. While most are familiar with the IMF and its predatory lending practices (and those who aren’t are encouraged to acquaint themselves with the “IMF riot” strategy that was developed in the third world and is now being imported to Europe), the World Bank is less scrutinized and less well understood. What is it, what does it do, and why is it important for the BRICS to challenge its hegemony in the development and poverty reduction arenas?
For the answer to that, we’ll need to examine the World Bank’s history, both the official history that it touts to the outside world and the real history of its part in plundering the developing world that it is supposedly there to help.
As many have heard by now, the leaders of the so-called BRICS nations – Brazil, India, China, Russia and South Africa – used the occasion of the 6th BRICS Summit in Brasilia, Brazil to announce the creation of the long-awaited BRICS Development Bank.
Formally the “New Development Bank,” it will be based in Shanghai and capitalized with an initial $10 billion in cash ($2 billion from each of the five founding members) and $40 billion in guarantees, to be built up to a total of $100 billion.
Immediately, the press began touting the new bank as a potential rival to the current IMF / World Bank system of infrastructure development and poverty reduction in the third world. “BRICS Development Bank Could Challenge World Bank and IMF” touts US News & World Report. “BRICS Ink $50 Billion Lender in World Bank, IMF Challenge” asserts Bloomberg. The World Bank, for its part, is downplaying the rivalry, with World Bank President Jim Young Kim openly welcoming the bank at a recent meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “The only competition we have is with poverty,” he told reporters at the meeting.
But all of this talk about a potential rival to the IMF and World Bank have exposed the general public’s ignorance about what exactly these institutions are and what they do. While most are familiar with the IMF and its predatory lending practices (and those who aren’t are encouraged to acquaint themselves with the “IMF riot” strategy that was developed in the third world and is now being imported to Europe), the World Bank is less scrutinized and less well understood. What is it, what does it do, and why is it important for the BRICS to challenge its hegemony in the development and poverty reduction arenas?
For the answer to that, we’ll need to examine the World Bank’s history, both the official history that it touts to the outside world and the real history of its part in plundering the developing world that it is supposedly there to help.
- See more at: http://www.globalresearch.ca/what-the-world-bank-actually-does/5396476?utm_source=feedly&utm_reader=feedly&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=what-the-world-bank-actually-does#sthash.xCGF4C45.dpufImmediately, the press began touting the new bank as a potential rival to the current IMF / World Bank system of infrastructure development and poverty reduction in the third world. “BRICS Development Bank Could Challenge World Bank and IMF” touts US News & World Report. “BRICS Ink $50 Billion Lender in World Bank, IMF Challenge” asserts Bloomberg. The World Bank, for its part, is downplaying the rivalry, with World Bank President Jim Young Kim openly welcoming the bank at a recent meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “The only competition we have is with poverty,” he told reporters at the meeting.
But all of this talk about a potential rival to the IMF and World Bank have exposed the general public’s ignorance about what exactly these institutions are and what they do. While most are familiar with the IMF and its predatory lending practices (and those who aren’t are encouraged to acquaint themselves with the “IMF riot” strategy that was developed in the third world and is now being imported to Europe), the World Bank is less scrutinized and less well understood. What is it, what does it do, and why is it important for the BRICS to challenge its hegemony in the development and poverty reduction arenas?
For the answer to that, we’ll need to examine the World Bank’s history, both the official history that it touts to the outside world and the real history of its part in plundering the developing world that it is supposedly there to help.
As many have heard by now, the leaders of the so-called BRICS nations – Brazil, India, China, Russia and South Africa – used the occasion of the 6th BRICS Summit in Brasilia, Brazil to announce the creation of the long-awaited BRICS Development Bank.
Formally the “New Development Bank,” it will be based in Shanghai and capitalized with an initial $10 billion in cash ($2 billion from each of the five founding members) and $40 billion in guarantees, to be built up to a total of $100 billion.
Immediately, the press began touting the new bank as a potential rival to the current IMF / World Bank system of infrastructure development and poverty reduction in the third world. “BRICS Development Bank Could Challenge World Bank and IMF” touts US News & World Report. “BRICS Ink $50 Billion Lender in World Bank, IMF Challenge” asserts Bloomberg. The World Bank, for its part, is downplaying the rivalry, with World Bank President Jim Young Kim openly welcoming the bank at a recent meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “The only competition we have is with poverty,” he told reporters at the meeting.
But all of this talk about a potential rival to the IMF and World Bank have exposed the general public’s ignorance about what exactly these institutions are and what they do. While most are familiar with the IMF and its predatory lending practices (and those who aren’t are encouraged to acquaint themselves with the “IMF riot” strategy that was developed in the third world and is now being imported to Europe), the World Bank is less scrutinized and less well understood. What is it, what does it do, and why is it important for the BRICS to challenge its hegemony in the development and poverty reduction arenas?
For the answer to that, we’ll need to examine the World Bank’s history, both the official history that it touts to the outside world and the real history of its part in plundering the developing world that it is supposedly there to help.
- See more at: http://www.globalresearch.ca/what-the-world-bank-actually-does/5396476?utm_source=feedly&utm_reader=feedly&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=what-the-world-bank-actually-does#sthash.xCGF4C45.dpufImmediately, the press began touting the new bank as a potential rival to the current IMF / World Bank system of infrastructure development and poverty reduction in the third world. “BRICS Development Bank Could Challenge World Bank and IMF” touts US News & World Report. “BRICS Ink $50 Billion Lender in World Bank, IMF Challenge” asserts Bloomberg. The World Bank, for its part, is downplaying the rivalry, with World Bank President Jim Young Kim openly welcoming the bank at a recent meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “The only competition we have is with poverty,” he told reporters at the meeting.
But all of this talk about a potential rival to the IMF and World Bank have exposed the general public’s ignorance about what exactly these institutions are and what they do. While most are familiar with the IMF and its predatory lending practices (and those who aren’t are encouraged to acquaint themselves with the “IMF riot” strategy that was developed in the third world and is now being imported to Europe), the World Bank is less scrutinized and less well understood. What is it, what does it do, and why is it important for the BRICS to challenge its hegemony in the development and poverty reduction arenas?
For the answer to that, we’ll need to examine the World Bank’s history, both the official history that it touts to the outside world and the real history of its part in plundering the developing world that it is supposedly there to help.
As many have heard by now, the leaders of the so-called BRICS nations – Brazil, India, China, Russia and South Africa – used the occasion of the 6th BRICS Summit in Brasilia, Brazil to announce the creation of the long-awaited BRICS Development Bank.
Formally the “New Development Bank,” it will be based in Shanghai and capitalized with an initial $10 billion in cash ($2 billion from each of the five founding members) and $40 billion in guarantees, to be built up to a total of $100 billion.
Immediately, the press began touting the new bank as a potential rival to the current IMF / World Bank system of infrastructure development and poverty reduction in the third world. “BRICS Development Bank Could Challenge World Bank and IMF” touts US News & World Report. “BRICS Ink $50 Billion Lender in World Bank, IMF Challenge” asserts Bloomberg. The World Bank, for its part, is downplaying the rivalry, with World Bank President Jim Young Kim openly welcoming the bank at a recent meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “The only competition we have is with poverty,” he told reporters at the meeting.
But all of this talk about a potential rival to the IMF and World Bank have exposed the general public’s ignorance about what exactly these institutions are and what they do. While most are familiar with the IMF and its predatory lending practices (and those who aren’t are encouraged to acquaint themselves with the “IMF riot” strategy that was developed in the third world and is now being imported to Europe), the World Bank is less scrutinized and less well understood. What is it, what does it do, and why is it important for the BRICS to challenge its hegemony in the development and poverty reduction arenas?
For the answer to that, we’ll need to examine the World Bank’s history, both the official history that it touts to the outside world and the real history of its part in plundering the developing world that it is supposedly there to help.
- See more at: http://www.globalresearch.ca/what-the-world-bank-actually-does/5396476?utm_source=feedly&utm_reader=feedly&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=what-the-world-bank-actually-does#sthash.xCGF4C45.dpufImmediately, the press began touting the new bank as a potential rival to the current IMF / World Bank system of infrastructure development and poverty reduction in the third world. “BRICS Development Bank Could Challenge World Bank and IMF” touts US News & World Report. “BRICS Ink $50 Billion Lender in World Bank, IMF Challenge” asserts Bloomberg. The World Bank, for its part, is downplaying the rivalry, with World Bank President Jim Young Kim openly welcoming the bank at a recent meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “The only competition we have is with poverty,” he told reporters at the meeting.
But all of this talk about a potential rival to the IMF and World Bank have exposed the general public’s ignorance about what exactly these institutions are and what they do. While most are familiar with the IMF and its predatory lending practices (and those who aren’t are encouraged to acquaint themselves with the “IMF riot” strategy that was developed in the third world and is now being imported to Europe), the World Bank is less scrutinized and less well understood. What is it, what does it do, and why is it important for the BRICS to challenge its hegemony in the development and poverty reduction arenas?
For the answer to that, we’ll need to examine the World Bank’s history, both the official history that it touts to the outside world and the real history of its part in plundering the developing world that it is supposedly there to help.
Formally the “New Development Bank,” it will be based in Shanghai and capitalized with an initial $10 billion in cash ($2 billion from each of the five founding members) and $40 billion in guarantees, to be built up to a total of $100 billion.
Immediately, the press began touting the new bank as a potential rival to the current IMF / World Bank system of infrastructure development and poverty reduction in the third world. “BRICS Development Bank Could Challenge World Bank and IMF” touts US News & World Report. “BRICS Ink $50 Billion Lender in World Bank, IMF Challenge” asserts Bloomberg. The World Bank, for its part, is downplaying the rivalry, with World Bank President Jim Young Kim openly welcoming the bank at a recent meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “The only competition we have is with poverty,” he told reporters at the meeting.
But all of this talk about a potential rival to the IMF and World Bank have exposed the general public’s ignorance about what exactly these institutions are and what they do. While most are familiar with the IMF and its predatory lending practices (and those who aren’t are encouraged to acquaint themselves with the “IMF riot” strategy that was developed in the third world and is now being imported to Europe), the World Bank is less scrutinized and less well understood. What is it, what does it do, and why is it important for the BRICS to challenge its hegemony in the development and poverty reduction arenas?
For the answer to that, we’ll need to examine the World Bank’s history, both the official history that it touts to the outside world and the real history of its part in plundering the developing world that it is supposedly there to help.
The Official Story
The World Bank was born along with the IMF at the 1944 Bretton Woods conference that decided on the financial architecture of the post-WWII world, only at that time it was known as the “International Bank for Reconstruction and Development” and was concerned primarily with post-war reconstruction of Europe. After the implementation of the Marshall Plan in 1947, however, its focus shifted to the non-European world where it provided development loans targeted at helping developing countries create income-generating infrastructure (power plants, seaports, highways, etc.).
From the very beginning there has been question about the overlap of the IMF and World Bank’s respective roles. Both are committed, according to the IMF website, to “raising living standards in their member countries,” but the IMF is financial in nature, concentrating on short and medium-term loans to help countries meet balance of payment needs , while the World Bank is fundamentally a development institution, focusing on technical and financial support for specific projects or sectoral reforms. Part of the confusion is linguistic; at the first ever meeting meeting of the IMF the “father” of Bretton Woods, John Maynard Keynes (who else?), confessed he thought the Fund should be called a bank and the Bank should be called a fund. Nevertheless, the monikers have stuck and the World Bank and IMF continue to talk the talk of global infrastructure development and poverty reduction.
Since the World Bank pivoted away from Europe to concentrate on the developing world in the late 1940s, it has lent more than $330 billion on infrastructure development projects. It currently boasts $232.8 billion in total subscribed capital, overseeing $358.9 billion in total assets. The World Bank concentrates its lending on creditworthy governments of developing nations, and splits its lending activities between the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and the International Development Association (IDA). The IBRD generally provides 12-15 year loans at slightly above market rates to countries with per capita GDPs above $1305. The IDA, meanwhile, provides interest-free 35 to 40 year loans to countries with per capita GDPs below the $1305 mark.
Unlike the IMF, which is funded by quota subscriptions from member countries, the World Bank finances its lending by borrowing on the international bond market. As a result, for the first decades of its existence the World Bank was concerned with building up its reputation as a lender and establishing its own creditworthiness. Until 1968, the Bank was a relatively small institution with less than 1000 employees concentrated in Washington that concerned itself almost exclusively with loans designed to finance transportation and energy infrastructure projects.
When JFK/LBJ Secretary of Defense and unconvicted war criminal Robert McNamara took over as president in 1968, however, he began a radical repositioning of the Bank and transformation of its aim, scope and practices. Over his 12 years at the helm of the Bank, McNamara greatly expanded its lending activities, shifting the aim of that lending toward agricultural reform and literacy initiatives, as well as the building of schools and hospitals. During this period the Bank’s treasurer, Eugene Rotberg, increased the Bank’s capital by going beyond the established developed world banks that had been its primary funding source and tapping into the global bond market. In the 1980s the bank began to press so-called “Structural Adjustment Policies” on loan recipients, including mandates to devalue currencies or reduce government spending in various areas, as pre-conditions for lending. The Bank also began providing lending to help governments service the debts they had racked up in previous rounds of lending.
After the Bank came under increasing scrutiny (and protest) in the 1990s and early 2000s, it has adjusted its policies and practices to address its critics. It now touts environmental responsibility in the infrastructure projects it provides loans for and places greater emphasis on the goal of promoting economic engagement by the poorest people in its target countries. As a result, the World Bank now claims to focus on the eradication of hunger, gender equality, environmental sustainability, maternal health and child mortality, communicable disease prevention, and universal primary education in its target countries.
The Real Story
As readers of these pages will no doubt be aware, there is of course more to the story than that glossy, PR-friendly official story would have us believe. The period of McNamara’s stewardship from 1968-1980 was instrumental in shaping the institution that we know (or should know) today: a tool of the Washington power players that is used as a way of transferring the productive wealth of the third world back to the first world. The larger capital that was raised during his tenure was used to expand the bank’s lending activities, and those expanded loans kicked off the era of the third world debt crisis, including a period from 1976 to 1980 where developing world debt rose on average 20% per year.
As journalist John Pilger noted in his powerful documentary, “War By Other Means,” released back in 1991:
This process was described most famously by former insider and self-described “economic hitman” John Perkins, who wrote his “Confessions of an Economic Hitman” to shed light on the means by which the seemingly benevolent IMF/World Bank system is used to oppress and plunder the very populations it is designed to enrich.
According to Perkins:
The World Bank, despite its friendly exterior and the lofty platitudes its proponents spout in its defense, continues to undergird a system of exploitation and debt enslavement of developing countries. For half a century, the Bank has been responsible for the furtherance of a Pax Americana built not upon peace, prosperity and free trade but violence, debt and enforced servitude.
The Rest of the Story
…But now along comes the New Development Bank promising an alternative to the World Bank hegemony. Unlike the Structural Adjustment Loan regime of the World Bank, the NDB is promising to provide loans with no strings attached; the BRICS have no interest in telling loan recipients how to run their country.
Is this a fundamental challenge to the system as it exists? Is the NDB likely to live up to the lofty expectations that have been placed on it? In what time frame can we expect to see the changes to the international order take place?
The answer to these questions constitute what Paul Harvey would call in his trademark drawl, “the rest of the story…” and we will explore that story here next week.
- See more at: http://www.globalresearch.ca/what-the-world-bank-actually-does/5396476?utm_source=feedly&utm_reader=feedly&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=what-the-world-bank-actually-does#sthash.xCGF4C45.dpuf
The World Bank was born along with the IMF at the 1944 Bretton Woods conference that decided on the financial architecture of the post-WWII world, only at that time it was known as the “International Bank for Reconstruction and Development” and was concerned primarily with post-war reconstruction of Europe. After the implementation of the Marshall Plan in 1947, however, its focus shifted to the non-European world where it provided development loans targeted at helping developing countries create income-generating infrastructure (power plants, seaports, highways, etc.).
From the very beginning there has been question about the overlap of the IMF and World Bank’s respective roles. Both are committed, according to the IMF website, to “raising living standards in their member countries,” but the IMF is financial in nature, concentrating on short and medium-term loans to help countries meet balance of payment needs , while the World Bank is fundamentally a development institution, focusing on technical and financial support for specific projects or sectoral reforms. Part of the confusion is linguistic; at the first ever meeting meeting of the IMF the “father” of Bretton Woods, John Maynard Keynes (who else?), confessed he thought the Fund should be called a bank and the Bank should be called a fund. Nevertheless, the monikers have stuck and the World Bank and IMF continue to talk the talk of global infrastructure development and poverty reduction.
Since the World Bank pivoted away from Europe to concentrate on the developing world in the late 1940s, it has lent more than $330 billion on infrastructure development projects. It currently boasts $232.8 billion in total subscribed capital, overseeing $358.9 billion in total assets. The World Bank concentrates its lending on creditworthy governments of developing nations, and splits its lending activities between the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and the International Development Association (IDA). The IBRD generally provides 12-15 year loans at slightly above market rates to countries with per capita GDPs above $1305. The IDA, meanwhile, provides interest-free 35 to 40 year loans to countries with per capita GDPs below the $1305 mark.
Unlike the IMF, which is funded by quota subscriptions from member countries, the World Bank finances its lending by borrowing on the international bond market. As a result, for the first decades of its existence the World Bank was concerned with building up its reputation as a lender and establishing its own creditworthiness. Until 1968, the Bank was a relatively small institution with less than 1000 employees concentrated in Washington that concerned itself almost exclusively with loans designed to finance transportation and energy infrastructure projects.
When JFK/LBJ Secretary of Defense and unconvicted war criminal Robert McNamara took over as president in 1968, however, he began a radical repositioning of the Bank and transformation of its aim, scope and practices. Over his 12 years at the helm of the Bank, McNamara greatly expanded its lending activities, shifting the aim of that lending toward agricultural reform and literacy initiatives, as well as the building of schools and hospitals. During this period the Bank’s treasurer, Eugene Rotberg, increased the Bank’s capital by going beyond the established developed world banks that had been its primary funding source and tapping into the global bond market. In the 1980s the bank began to press so-called “Structural Adjustment Policies” on loan recipients, including mandates to devalue currencies or reduce government spending in various areas, as pre-conditions for lending. The Bank also began providing lending to help governments service the debts they had racked up in previous rounds of lending.
After the Bank came under increasing scrutiny (and protest) in the 1990s and early 2000s, it has adjusted its policies and practices to address its critics. It now touts environmental responsibility in the infrastructure projects it provides loans for and places greater emphasis on the goal of promoting economic engagement by the poorest people in its target countries. As a result, the World Bank now claims to focus on the eradication of hunger, gender equality, environmental sustainability, maternal health and child mortality, communicable disease prevention, and universal primary education in its target countries.
The Real Story
As readers of these pages will no doubt be aware, there is of course more to the story than that glossy, PR-friendly official story would have us believe. The period of McNamara’s stewardship from 1968-1980 was instrumental in shaping the institution that we know (or should know) today: a tool of the Washington power players that is used as a way of transferring the productive wealth of the third world back to the first world. The larger capital that was raised during his tenure was used to expand the bank’s lending activities, and those expanded loans kicked off the era of the third world debt crisis, including a period from 1976 to 1980 where developing world debt rose on average 20% per year.
As journalist John Pilger noted in his powerful documentary, “War By Other Means,” released back in 1991:
“Remember Live Aid in 1985, that symbol of concern and generosity? Did you know that during that year, the hungriest countries in Africa gave twice as much money to us in the developed world as we gave to them? There was another famine last year. Perhaps you are one of those who took part in Red Nose Day. Did you know that before that day was over, the equivalent of all the money that comic relief had raised in Britain, about 12 million pounds, had come back to the rich countries? For every day this amount is given by the poorest to the rich on interest payments on loans that most of them never asked for or knew existed. In other words, contrary to a myth long popular in the West, it has been the poor of the world who have financed the rich, not the other way around.”The process by which these loans are made and the funds distributed to their recipients has long been rife with waste, corruption and fraud. Even in the best circumstances, the types of projects that the Bank concerned itself with in its early days, infrastructure projects focusing on energy and transportation, served to primarily enrich those who were already the richest in the target countries, the friends and cronies of the corrupt rulers whose business interests could make use of such innovations. At its worst, the Bank has been used to underpin the rule of corrupt and tyrannical leaders and force entire nations into debt slavery.
This process was described most famously by former insider and self-described “economic hitman” John Perkins, who wrote his “Confessions of an Economic Hitman” to shed light on the means by which the seemingly benevolent IMF/World Bank system is used to oppress and plunder the very populations it is designed to enrich.
According to Perkins:
“So how does the system work? We economic hitmen have many vehicles to make this happen, but perhaps the most common one is that we will identify a country—usually a developing country—that has resources our corporations covet, like oil, and then we arrange a huge loan to that country from the World Bank or one of its sister organizations.In his book, “The Globalization of Poverty and the New World Order,” Professor Michel Chossudovsky of the University of Ottawa provides extensive documentation of precisely how this process has functioned over the years through the Structural Adjustment Loan and Sector Adjustment Loan programs at the World Bank’s disposal. This documentation includes details of the Bank’s oversight of the build-up of Rwanda’s military budget in the run-up to its bloody internal war of 1994, the Bank’s own admission of how its loan-dictated deregulation of Vietnam’s grain market led to widespread child malnutrition in the country, and the World Bank’s contribution (in conjunction with the IMF) to the unprecedented plundering of Russia that took place in the wake of the Soviet collapse.
“Now most everybody in our country believes that loan is going to help poor people. It isn’t. Most of the money never goes to the country. In fact it goes to our own corporations. It goes to the Bechtels and the Halliburtons and the ones we all hear about, usually led by engineering firms, but a lot of other companies are brought in and they make fortunes off building the infrastructure projects in that country. Power plants, industrial parks, ports, those types of things. Things that don’t benefit the poor people at all; they’re not connected to the electrical grid, they don’t get the jobs in the industrial parks because they’re not educated enough. But they as a class are left holding a huge debt. The country goes deep into debt in order to make this happen, and a few of its wealthy people get very rich in the process. They own the big industries that do benefit from the ports and the highways and the industrial parks and the electricity.
“The country is left holding this huge debt that it can’t possibly repay, so at some point we economic hitmen go back in and we say, ‘You know, you can’t pay your debts. You owe us a pound of flesh, you owe us a big favor. So sell your oil real cheap to our oil companies, or vote with us on the next critical United Nations vote, or send troops in support of our to some place in the world like Iraq.’ And so we use this whole process as, first of all, a means for getting their money (money we loan them) to enrich our own corporations, and then to use the debt to enslave them.”
The World Bank, despite its friendly exterior and the lofty platitudes its proponents spout in its defense, continues to undergird a system of exploitation and debt enslavement of developing countries. For half a century, the Bank has been responsible for the furtherance of a Pax Americana built not upon peace, prosperity and free trade but violence, debt and enforced servitude.
The Rest of the Story
…But now along comes the New Development Bank promising an alternative to the World Bank hegemony. Unlike the Structural Adjustment Loan regime of the World Bank, the NDB is promising to provide loans with no strings attached; the BRICS have no interest in telling loan recipients how to run their country.
Is this a fundamental challenge to the system as it exists? Is the NDB likely to live up to the lofty expectations that have been placed on it? In what time frame can we expect to see the changes to the international order take place?
The answer to these questions constitute what Paul Harvey would call in his trademark drawl, “the rest of the story…” and we will explore that story here next week.
- See more at: http://www.globalresearch.ca/what-the-world-bank-actually-does/5396476?utm_source=feedly&utm_reader=feedly&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=what-the-world-bank-actually-does#sthash.xCGF4C45.dpuf
The World Bank was born along with the IMF at the 1944 Bretton Woods conference that decided on the financial architecture of the post-WWII world, only at that time it was known as the “International Bank for Reconstruction and Development” and was concerned primarily with post-war reconstruction of Europe. After the implementation of the Marshall Plan in 1947, however, its focus shifted to the non-European world where it provided development loans targeted at helping developing countries create income-generating infrastructure (power plants, seaports, highways, etc.).
From the very beginning there has been question about the overlap of the IMF and World Bank’s respective roles. Both are committed, according to the IMF website, to “raising living standards in their member countries,” but the IMF is financial in nature, concentrating on short and medium-term loans to help countries meet balance of payment needs , while the World Bank is fundamentally a development institution, focusing on technical and financial support for specific projects or sectoral reforms. Part of the confusion is linguistic; at the first ever meeting meeting of the IMF the “father” of Bretton Woods, John Maynard Keynes (who else?), confessed he thought the Fund should be called a bank and the Bank should be called a fund. Nevertheless, the monikers have stuck and the World Bank and IMF continue to talk the talk of global infrastructure development and poverty reduction.
Since the World Bank pivoted away from Europe to concentrate on the developing world in the late 1940s, it has lent more than $330 billion on infrastructure development projects. It currently boasts $232.8 billion in total subscribed capital, overseeing $358.9 billion in total assets. The World Bank concentrates its lending on creditworthy governments of developing nations, and splits its lending activities between the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and the International Development Association (IDA). The IBRD generally provides 12-15 year loans at slightly above market rates to countries with per capita GDPs above $1305. The IDA, meanwhile, provides interest-free 35 to 40 year loans to countries with per capita GDPs below the $1305 mark.
Unlike the IMF, which is funded by quota subscriptions from member countries, the World Bank finances its lending by borrowing on the international bond market. As a result, for the first decades of its existence the World Bank was concerned with building up its reputation as a lender and establishing its own creditworthiness. Until 1968, the Bank was a relatively small institution with less than 1000 employees concentrated in Washington that concerned itself almost exclusively with loans designed to finance transportation and energy infrastructure projects.
When JFK/LBJ Secretary of Defense and unconvicted war criminal Robert McNamara took over as president in 1968, however, he began a radical repositioning of the Bank and transformation of its aim, scope and practices. Over his 12 years at the helm of the Bank, McNamara greatly expanded its lending activities, shifting the aim of that lending toward agricultural reform and literacy initiatives, as well as the building of schools and hospitals. During this period the Bank’s treasurer, Eugene Rotberg, increased the Bank’s capital by going beyond the established developed world banks that had been its primary funding source and tapping into the global bond market. In the 1980s the bank began to press so-called “Structural Adjustment Policies” on loan recipients, including mandates to devalue currencies or reduce government spending in various areas, as pre-conditions for lending. The Bank also began providing lending to help governments service the debts they had racked up in previous rounds of lending.
After the Bank came under increasing scrutiny (and protest) in the 1990s and early 2000s, it has adjusted its policies and practices to address its critics. It now touts environmental responsibility in the infrastructure projects it provides loans for and places greater emphasis on the goal of promoting economic engagement by the poorest people in its target countries. As a result, the World Bank now claims to focus on the eradication of hunger, gender equality, environmental sustainability, maternal health and child mortality, communicable disease prevention, and universal primary education in its target countries.
The Real Story
As readers of these pages will no doubt be aware, there is of course more to the story than that glossy, PR-friendly official story would have us believe. The period of McNamara’s stewardship from 1968-1980 was instrumental in shaping the institution that we know (or should know) today: a tool of the Washington power players that is used as a way of transferring the productive wealth of the third world back to the first world. The larger capital that was raised during his tenure was used to expand the bank’s lending activities, and those expanded loans kicked off the era of the third world debt crisis, including a period from 1976 to 1980 where developing world debt rose on average 20% per year.
As journalist John Pilger noted in his powerful documentary, “War By Other Means,” released back in 1991:
“Remember Live Aid in 1985, that symbol of concern and generosity? Did you know that during that year, the hungriest countries in Africa gave twice as much money to us in the developed world as we gave to them? There was another famine last year. Perhaps you are one of those who took part in Red Nose Day. Did you know that before that day was over, the equivalent of all the money that comic relief had raised in Britain, about 12 million pounds, had come back to the rich countries? For every day this amount is given by the poorest to the rich on interest payments on loans that most of them never asked for or knew existed. In other words, contrary to a myth long popular in the West, it has been the poor of the world who have financed the rich, not the other way around.”
The process by which these loans are made and the funds distributed to their recipients has long been rife with waste, corruption and fraud. Even in the best circumstances, the types of projects that the Bank concerned itself with in its early days, infrastructure projects focusing on energy and transportation, served to primarily enrich those who were already the richest in the target countries, the friends and cronies of the corrupt rulers whose business interests could make use of such innovations. At its worst, the Bank has been used to underpin the rule of corrupt and tyrannical leaders and force entire nations into debt slavery.
This process was described most famously by former insider and self-described “economic hitman” John Perkins, who wrote his “Confessions of an Economic Hitman” to shed light on the means by which the seemingly benevolent IMF/World Bank system is used to oppress and plunder the very populations it is designed to enrich.
According to Perkins:
“So how does the system work? We economic hitmen have many vehicles to make this happen, but perhaps the most common one is that we will identify a country—usually a developing country—that has resources our corporations covet, like oil, and then we arrange a huge loan to that country from the World Bank or one of its sister organizations.
“Now most everybody in our country believes that loan is going to help poor people. It isn’t. Most of the money never goes to the country. In fact it goes to our own corporations. It goes to the Bechtels and the Halliburtons and the ones we all hear about, usually led by engineering firms, but a lot of other companies are brought in and they make fortunes off building the infrastructure projects in that country. Power plants, industrial parks, ports, those types of things. Things that don’t benefit the poor people at all; they’re not connected to the electrical grid, they don’t get the jobs in the industrial parks because they’re not educated enough. But they as a class are left holding a huge debt. The country goes deep into debt in order to make this happen, and a few of its wealthy people get very rich in the process. They own the big industries that do benefit from the ports and the highways and the industrial parks and the electricity.
“The country is left holding this huge debt that it can’t possibly repay, so at some point we economic hitmen go back in and we say, ‘You know, you can’t pay your debts. You owe us a pound of flesh, you owe us a big favor. So sell your oil real cheap to our oil companies, or vote with us on the next critical United Nations vote, or send troops in support of our to some place in the world like Iraq.’ And so we use this whole process as, first of all, a means for getting their money (money we loan them) to enrich our own corporations, and then to use the debt to enslave them.”
In his book, “The Globalization of Poverty and the New World Order,” Professor Michel Chossudovsky of the University of Ottawa provides extensive documentation of precisely how this process has functioned over the years through the Structural Adjustment Loan and Sector Adjustment Loan programs at the World Bank’s disposal. This documentation includes details of the Bank’s oversight of the build-up of Rwanda’s military budget in the run-up to its bloody internal war of 1994, the Bank’s own admission of how its loan-dictated deregulation of Vietnam’s grain market led to widespread child malnutrition in the country, and the World Bank’s contribution (in conjunction with the IMF) to the unprecedented plundering of Russia that took place in the wake of the Soviet collapse.
The World Bank, despite its friendly exterior and the lofty platitudes its proponents spout in its defense, continues to undergird a system of exploitation and debt enslavement of developing countries. For half a century, the Bank has been responsible for the furtherance of a Pax Americana built not upon peace, prosperity and free trade but violence, debt and enforced servitude.
The Rest of the Story
…But now along comes the New Development Bank promising an alternative to the World Bank hegemony. Unlike the Structural Adjustment Loan regime of the World Bank, the NDB is promising to provide loans with no strings attached; the BRICS have no interest in telling loan recipients how to run their country.
Is this a fundamental challenge to the system as it exists? Is the NDB likely to live up to the lofty expectations that have been placed on it? In what time frame can we expect to see the changes to the international order take place?
The answer to these questions constitute what Paul Harvey would call in his trademark drawl, “the rest of the story…” and we will explore that story here next week.
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